Advanced Topics in Developing and Evaluating Public Health Strategies for Behavior Change

ID 541 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The goal of this course is to equip students with the knowledge and methodological skills necessary to critically evaluate and understand the determinants of health behaviors – particularly related to healthy eating and physical activity – and to rigorously study public health efforts to support behavior change. Oftentimes, public health policies and programs focused on changing health behaviors like eating, exercise, or substance use are designed based on pre-existing biases and assumptions about how and why such behaviors develop, rather than critically engaging with scientific evidence. Moreover, scientific evidence on feasible, real-world strategies for supporting behavior change is often limited. This course addresses these issues by building students’ skills in:

1. Critically analyzing existing frameworks for explaining health behaviors and in evaluating existing science on behavior change;
2. Conducting rigorous, strategic research to inform real-world public health and policy actions. 

While this course is primarily intended for PhD and/or DrPH students at Harvard Chan who are seeking to build out their toolbox of methodological and theoretical skills, master’s students interested in research and/or studying policies and programs to support healthy behaviors may also find the course useful. Students interested in leveraging policies to promote health from other schools, including Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School, may also be interested in the course. Additionally, while the course is focused on nutrition and nutrition-related chronic disease prevention, the course may be of interest to students focused on other health behaviors that influence chronic disease risk as well (e.g. tobacco, substance use, etc.).